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The other problem is that laptops are being built like mobile phones, with everything soldered to the board and the whole thing either sealed shut or taped down

The other problem is that laptops are being built like mobile phones, with everything soldered to the board and the whole thing either sealed shut or taped down. Upgradeable & portable laptops just dont seem to exist at the price points they used to.

audunw 10y ago
Get used to it. This is the way the industry is going, for very good reasons. Increased demands for more (or same) performance at lower power means you want more connections with shorter traces, and more functionality in the same chip or package. It seems likely that eventually all components except primary storage (SSD) will be in a single package. On the flip-side, we've gotten external GPUs through Thunderbolt. So we've gotten the ability to extend laptop GPUs. Another positive development is that SSDs are likely to continue getting faster. Maybe RAM won't be upgradeable anymore, but if Intel can push out their Octane/3D XPoint tech, you might get SSDs so fast that you can get almost the same benefit swapping to a faster SSD as upgraded RAM. I mean, you've never been able to upgrade your CPU cache. If RAM is a glorified cache for the SSD, why complain that you can't upgrade that anymore? Maybe one day SSDs will be soldered on in laptops too though :/
- xxs 10y ago
  >>I mean, you've never been able to upgrade your CPU cache More L3 cache will hardly do anything for you either way. But upgrading the CPU may mean upgrading the CPU cache, if it's a socket one instead of soldered, it ain't hard at any rate. However, even overclocking the CPU cache has beyond minuscule results. >>If RAM is a glorified cache for the SSD This 'really' depends on your workloads and it's not always the case, even though it's often the RAM is mostly used as disk cache.
xxs 10y ago
Nowadays, and most "fancy" brands. Few weeks back I upgraded a 2010 laptop by replacing the CPU, RAM, Battery, adding SSD (instead of the DVD). The end result was glorious. Looking at current generation of soldered CPU and glue as building solution is off putting at best. It feels like a cheap toy produced in a sweat shop.
pjmlp 10y ago
I think this is not going to change, basically the industry is going back to the whole package concept that was common when the PC took off. Think about Atari, Acorn, Amiga and such. While there were a few Pro like models, the majority of the home users were using the full packaged ones, with connection ports for external extensions. Apple was the last one with this mindset, and thanks to their survival and success, that is the trend the industry is now returning to. Specially given that computers have reached a plateau for 90% of the users out there.
fizzbatter 10y ago
Fwiw, i sort of like that. I understand it really sucks not being able to replace chips, especially something as simple as adding RAM, but i've not really seen a super compact laptop also allow me to replace RAM easily. My Macbook Pro Retina is quite compact, and it's proven to be a really important trait. If someone makes them as compact and replaceable i'm on board, i just haven't seen it. Not saying it's not possible of course :)
- yulaow 10y ago
  I personally value far more the possibility to easily replace hw (battery for sure, cpu, ram, and ssd at minimum, but even looking also for screen, keyboard and wlan cards). For me is a good compromise in exchange of even 1-2 cm more in thickness. Just recently I was looking for a new laptop and ended up buying a refurbished thinkpad t430 (270e with 8gb [gonna become 16] ram, ssd and i5 3rd gen)just because I am sure I can change basically every part of it whenever I want for a low price.

audunw 10y ago

Get used to it. This is the way the industry is going, for very good reasons. Increased demands for more (or same) performance at lower power means you want more connections with shorter traces, and more functionality in the same chip or package. It seems likely that eventually all components except primary storage (SSD) will be in a single package. On the flip-side, we've gotten external GPUs through Thunderbolt. So we've gotten the ability to extend laptop GPUs. Another positive development is that SSDs are likely to continue getting faster. Maybe RAM won't be upgradeable anymore, but if Intel can push out their Octane/3D XPoint tech, you might get SSDs so fast that you can get almost the same benefit swapping to a faster SSD as upgraded RAM. I mean, you've never been able to upgrade your CPU cache. If RAM is a glorified cache for the SSD, why complain that you can't upgrade that anymore? Maybe one day SSDs will be soldered on in laptops too though :/

xxs 10y ago
>>I mean, you've never been able to upgrade your CPU cache More L3 cache will hardly do anything for you either way. But upgrading the CPU may mean upgrading the CPU cache, if it's a socket one instead of soldered, it ain't hard at any rate. However, even overclocking the CPU cache has beyond minuscule results. >>If RAM is a glorified cache for the SSD This 'really' depends on your workloads and it's not always the case, even though it's often the RAM is mostly used as disk cache.

xxs 10y ago

Nowadays, and most "fancy" brands. Few weeks back I upgraded a 2010 laptop by replacing the CPU, RAM, Battery, adding SSD (instead of the DVD). The end result was glorious. Looking at current generation of soldered CPU and glue as building solution is off putting at best. It feels like a cheap toy produced in a sweat shop.

pjmlp 10y ago

I think this is not going to change, basically the industry is going back to the whole package concept that was common when the PC took off. Think about Atari, Acorn, Amiga and such. While there were a few Pro like models, the majority of the home users were using the full packaged ones, with connection ports for external extensions. Apple was the last one with this mindset, and thanks to their survival and success, that is the trend the industry is now returning to. Specially given that computers have reached a plateau for 90% of the users out there.

fizzbatter 10y ago

Fwiw, i sort of like that. I understand it really sucks not being able to replace chips, especially something as simple as adding RAM, but i've not really seen a super compact laptop also allow me to replace RAM easily. My Macbook Pro Retina is quite compact, and it's proven to be a really important trait. If someone makes them as compact and replaceable i'm on board, i just haven't seen it. Not saying it's not possible of course :)

yulaow 10y ago
I personally value far more the possibility to easily replace hw (battery for sure, cpu, ram, and ssd at minimum, but even looking also for screen, keyboard and wlan cards). For me is a good compromise in exchange of even 1-2 cm more in thickness. Just recently I was looking for a new laptop and ended up buying a refurbished thinkpad t430 (270e with 8gb [gonna become 16] ram, ssd and i5 3rd gen)just because I am sure I can change basically every part of it whenever I want for a low price.